Warning: FRAUD on African/black Dating sites

Several dating sites (including many aimed directly at the African/black community) has a high percentage of FAKE profiles posted. Many users are not aware that the person writing love letters to them through dating sites is not always what he/she appears to be.

From what I haven been told by several users, the fake profiles are probably made only for one purpose: to cheat naive men into sending money to the person hiding behind a false name and picture. The excuses used are money for an airline ticket, hospital treatments, school fees or similar. The love-seeking men will never see their money again and surely never see the person they thought to be mailing with. The profiles are hiding behind fake pictures and who knows... often the beautiful young woman is in fact a man. There is some patterns to see in the way the false profiles are used and it gives the impression that these are pretty well-organised frauds.

These people are just looking for easy cash, so.... be VERY much alert and aware if you are using online dating sites. It is very easy to be fooled on the net and pictures doesn't always tell the truth.

Fake photos

I was made aware of this problem after users telling me that some of my portraits of African women has been stolen and abused on dating sites and online forums. This was obviously never the aim of my photographs or the wish of the models posing. In most cases the fake profiles was deleted promptly by the administrators after I contacted them. But sadly they often pop up again later under a new profile name. The problem is extending and I get new reports of abused pictures almost EVERY DAY! My photos are obviously not the only photos being abused online so watch out on the dating sites.

Report scams

Have you seen photos from my site abused online? Please send your complaint directly to the site administrators and alert me if the profiles are not deleted. (Please ONLY send me mails about scams involving pictures you are sure to have seen on www.crawfurd.dk.)

Have you seen your own photos abused on a dating site? Contact the dating site and ask them to have the pictures removed. Do not give up even if they ignore your first mails. If your requests are completely ignored the sites should be reported to the police. These kind of scams should be stopped and the Datings ites should acknowledge their responsibility in doing so. Most will claim that they are not responsible for what their users post on tehir server, but they are not ready to give away details on the abusive users. And hey... who else should be responsible?

Responsibility of the dating administrators

The dating site administrators ARE aware of this problem. I have personally been writing complaints to at least 30 sites by now! But sadly most of them really do not care about fake profiles, pictures being abused by strangers and paying users being played for fools by other users. Only a few dating sites write in clear text that it is illegal to post other peoples pictures and to violate copyright laws. Very few dating sites warns their own paying users against the risc of scams. In my opinion the dating sites should take the problem and their responsibility more serious.

Sites ignoring the copyright/abuse problem

Some times the administrators of a dating site fails to take complaints serious. My request to have fake pictures removed has been completely ignored og I only recieve automatic responses showing. I therefore see no other way than to warn to be very carefull in trusting profiles on these sites. The content (my photos) on the sites are breaking international copyright laws as well as the privacy/integrity of the models depicted. The people who posted the profiles surely has very low morals and ethics when it comes to abuse pictures of other people.

The extend of IT-fraud and scams on dating sites is escalating. All managers of dating sites should realise that it will (in the long run) threaten to end the dating industry as people wont dare to take online-dating serious. If you, as an administrator/owner, are serious about people's privacy and the problems of fake profiles, you should have a very strong and VISIBLE policy against scams and abuse of pictures. You will also need to have staff going through the profiles to check them out, compare photos cross-posted and banning IP-numbers. Site owners ARE responsible for all material posted and hosted on their site. You will have to find ways of dealing with this. Luckily some sites actually are taken these precautions. Last but not least ...take abuse complaints very seriously and respond fast. Delete all fake profiles at once and make sure the users and fake photos will not show up again under a new name.

What is THIS site about?

Crawfurd.dk is a personal website promoting African Culture and a positive image of Africa in general. This includes photographs of beautiful African women -but is certainly not aimed to disgrace them in any way. These girls are normal students or married women -most often non-professional models. They have agreed to have their pictures posted to this site to promote black beauty ...and simply for fun. This site IS NOT a dating site and does "not" endorse or provide any models for any such service. The girls simply do not wish to be contacted! The fact that they are good looking and have their photos online does not make them "available" to their Nigerian "brothers" or anyone else who might suffer from this misunderstanding.If neccesary Crawfurd.dk will assist the police or other official authorities investigating scams with photographs copied illegally from this site !!!